There is no way they can get actual paystub data from employer or tax return data from irs.

Most likely they use field Annual Income that you voluntarily provide to banks/cc companies when applying for a loan and that number is reported to Equifax. That number is verified by a lender by inspecting your W-2/paystubs when underwriting car/mortgage/other loan.

So you should never voluntarily provide income info to lenders, because every bit of that info will be sold to other companies and can be used against yiu in the future

> There is no way they can get actual paystub data from employer

Depends on your employer. Per https://www.fastcompany.com/40485634/equifax-salary-data-and...

> Surprisingly, Facebook is among friends. Every payroll period, Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle also provide an electronic feed of their employees’ hourly work and wage information to Equifax. So do Wal-Mart, Twitter, AT&T, Harvard Law School, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Even Edward Snowden’s former employer, the sometimes secretive N.S.A. contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, sends salary and other personal data about its employees to Equifax Workplace Solutions.

Sounds like collusion to keep wages below market value to me.

It's gross but I honestly don't see how you can come to this conclusion? How can you keep wages below market value by sharing actual wages in the actual market?

Because the employers are the ones with access to the data, not the general public.

I guess it can be viewed as a way of establishing trust between parties involved.

Collusion on the part of the employers.

JFC. No words to describe this

it gets better. if you ever leave somewhere and HR dont update employment status and dates accurately with theworknumber, future employers background checks may fail, and cause hiring problems for you (it may look like you are working two jobs or lied about your history)

This is the best part about those systems - having to guess how it’s reporting wrong so you can “answer” the questions right.

Note that for the purposes of the Free Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), this is just another consumer report and you still have all the same rights you normally would, including the rights to recieve a copy of information in your file, dispute innaccuracies, and sue for damages.

Wow. They have super detailed data for the last few years. The report also tells you who has requested the data.

Kind of funny that you aren't supposed to share your salary but your employer does.

Who says you aren't supposed to share your salary? Your employer? It's legal to share your salary, and illegal for your employer to stop you or retaliate against you in the US (unless you are in management).

My parents and in laws. It’s a really, really big thing for their generation. You never share it, or ask.

It’s less of an issue with younger generation, but still important to be careful.

I still think it’s good etiquette not sharing it. Either you humiliate yourself or you come off as bragging

It really depends on the intention you have for sharing your salary. I have friends who want to get into software engineering and they ask me my salary history. Compared to industry standard, my salary is average at best, so it's a pitiful thing to brag about (not that money is ever not a pitiful thing to brag about)

If you're at a party and no one is asking, certainly don't share it. Nothing is worse than being at a party with a guy who constantly says "By the way, I make $500k at Facebook"

If for some reason salary is important to the conversation (for example talking about crypto or investing or just money in general) then sharing it can be appropriate.

But the most important thing imo is that you read the room: if it's likely the people you're talking with make less than you, then probably don't share it, and certainly never complain about money or the price of things. If it's likely they are well off as well, then sure, complain about your mid-six-figure salary

It’s important to be careful. But I’ve asked many people to tell me their how much they make, and how they got there.

If you’re polite about it, it not a huge issue.

Does this work in practice? There are surely lots of subtle ways an employer could retaliate against you that would be really hard to prove as retaliatory actions.

I would have assumed US law has some kind of hostile work environment protection, but according to wikipedia this only applies if the employee has been "treated in a hostile manner because of their membership in a protected class".

I worked in two different countries in European Union, and in both as far as I can tell (ianal) it’s perfectly legal to share salary information. Labor code states what the limits of what you can do are, and also that the contract can not be more restrictive than the labor code is.

However, this myth of illegality of sharing your salary information has been perpetuated by the employers to maintain an upper hand in negotiations. And it’s what keeps down the TCs in Europe, in my opinion.

>However, this myth of illegality of sharing your salary information has been perpetuated by the employers to maintain an upper hand in negotiations. And it’s what keeps down the TCs in Europe, in my opinion.

I don't think that's what keeps down the TC in Europe, because what you are describing is exactly the case in the US as well.

It is 100% legal to share your comp with anyone, and it is illegal for an employer to prohibit that or fire you for it or retaliate in any other way. And yet, a giant chunk of the population lives under a myth that they can get in trouble for sharing their comp info, even when the employer doesn't insinuate so or imply that at all.

I know some small employers might (illegally) try to imply that it isn't allowed (despite it being illegal, but those bosses are either ignorant or threading a fine line with the law), but I've even met some people working at FAANG-tier companies believing that sharing comp numbers is prohibited (despite FAANG-tier companies never even subtly implying that it isn't allowed).

How did you request a report for yourself? Did you create a personal account in order to access your data (via https://employees.theworknumber.com) or did you have a business account with them?

If you created an personal account in order to get your data, what kind of profile data did you have to give them before you could get to what they have?

You can also freeze access to it: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze

So... Equifax wants me to email a form with my SSN on it. Sigh.

Thank you! This seems like a huge pain in the ass.

Or you could submit deletion request if you live in California.

How is this legal? Where do they get these numbers? You employer(I dont think so) or your employer's payment role processors?

Information as a two-way street; your employer provides it so that they can, in turn, get salary reports that they can use.

I worked in this industry briefly; it's likely your HR department is providing tons of information to these services and then using the resulting statistics.

Your employer in many cases. See https://www.fastcompany.com/40485634/equifax-salary-data-and...

You yourself provide this info voluntarily to a bank when applying for a loan. The same bank verifies it by asking your paystubs before giving you a loan.

As a rule of thunb - anything you provide to a bank for credit will be reported to credit bureau and they will sell all your personal info to the highest bidder. Or get it stolen by hackers in yet another data breach

> You yourself provide this info voluntarily to a bank when apply for a loan. The same bank verifies it by asking your paystubs before giving you a loan.

This is really harmful phrasing - blaming the individual.

> when apply for a loan

This seems like general population data, nothing specific to people who’ve taken loans.

I was not trying to blame the individual, sorry if it appeared that way.

Mostly it is the unique messed up american system of credit information exchange where consumers have no control over how their data gets collected/used/sold.

I have never signed up an agreement with Equifax to store my personal data only to get it stolen occasionally. I wish US adopted more european centric models for personal data.

Do you know where I can buy this information? It might be interesting to know how much to expect from various companies. Or do they only sell to employers?

Replying to myself, there's a front page story about it now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753

Many employers send their entire workforce's annual salary as a standard data integration field for benefit/workforce system vendors. Equifax/TWN is one of those vendors many employers use.

TWN, in turn, grants these employers aggregate salary range data across companies (helping the company negotiate better deals).

I've began to answer, at least to myself, the question of "how is this legal?" with: it makes rich people a lot of money.

> You employer(I dont think so)

Yes, the employer. They give data and they get access to data.

Some of the companies selling this data are the ones who actually process the payroll for employers, and their contract with your employer specifically allows it.

NYC already prohibits employers from using salary information in setting compensation, unless the candidate voluntarily and without prompting offers that information (e.g. when the candidate thinks it will give them a higher offer). NY has a similar law at the state level as well (both apply simultaneously in NYC).

They still can use a service like The Work Number to verify candidate-provided numbers as part of a post-hiring background check, with proper consent from the candidate.

Wow, I wonder does this report equity grants? If not then at least you can still hide your total comp…

Depends on the employer, but in many cases yes. I have friends that work at Amazon that can confirm their RSU numbers showed up in their report.

> that has, for a big group of people, every single cent you ever made, who payed it, and when

Even capital gains?

> for a big group of people

No.

I visited the web site. When I click on My Personal Data, it gives a 403.

Which is freaking hilarious.

Hello GDPR yes, I know Equifax is in the US and the GDPR does not apply there, but this sort of abuse is why the GDPR exists. Equifax shouldn't even have that data, let alone be allowed to resell it.